Cherry MX brown supplier in Europe

[iveqy]

Hi,
my kinesis advantage has had a problem with a glass of lemonad finding its way down the keyboard and destroying 5-10 switches, they are all sticky.

Now my first plan is to order new ones (or alternative clean the old ones, but I doubt that will be successful). However I can't find any European supplier, the shipping from the US costs more than the actual switch and that seems a bit strange.

Where can I source new cherry mx brown switches for my kinesis advantage?

(does anyone know if they should be with the PCB mounted option or not btw?)

[Findecanor]

Some electronics component vendors also have them. For instance www.reichelt.de.
Shipping will still cost more than the five switches themselves.
You could also check eBay.

Yes, you should get switches with pins for PCB-mounting -- especially if you are replacing a switch for one of the thumb keys. The thumb keys' switches are PCB-mounted. The switches in the key wells are plate-mounted but the flexible circuit boards inside were made for the same type of switches.
Some older models of Kinesis' contoured keyboards did not use pins for PCB-mounting in the key wells but I think all Advantage do.

[rich1051414]

If you are going to desolder them anyway, picking up an ultrasonic cleaner would likely be a better long term investment, to be honest. You can get one for like 30 bucks on amazon, but I am not sure about your specific region, but they are generally pretty inexpensive. I use distilled water and 70% alcohol in 50/50 concentration to ultrasonically clean switches.

[katushkin]

The Cherry Switch bot on Deskthority is really good. I've bought a few hundred clears from there in the past and never had any complaints.

[iveqy]

What do you mean with cherry switch bot? I thought deskthority was a forum and not a retailer?

[TalkingTree]

What do you mean with cherry switch bot?

katushkin meant this.

I might add, if you can wait weeks to deliver, on Aliexpress there are a lot of shops that sell switches.

[Findecanor]

katushkin meant this.

BTW, the bot is not actually running on Deskthority:  It is only a user account. Users get private messages forwarded to their email addresses and the bot reacts to emails it receives. Going through the forum this way is a simple way of hiding the actual email address to protect it from spambots, and it also links each order to a user on the forum.